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BAGHDAD — A series of attacks yesterday against markets, shopping areas and auto-repair shops in
largely Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad killed at least 45 people and wounded dozens more, police
and medical officials said.

Iraq is experiencing a protracted wave of sectarian violence that has increased since the U.S.
military withdrawal in 2011, a level of strife not seen since 2006 and 2007. More than 8,000 Iraqis
have been killed this year, according to the United Nations.

The first bombing yesterday hit the Amil neighborhood in western Baghdad around 7:30 a.m. in a
crowded-shopping district near a bus stop, killing at least six people and wounding 19 others.

Later, a car bomb exploded on a street filled with factories and car-repair shops in Baya, a
neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 20, police said.

“I got in a car accident and I came here to fix my car, but now my car is more damaged and I am
wounded,” said Saad al-Temimi, who was being treated for his injuries. “Now I need to fix myself
and the car. I hate Sundays, and I hate myself being here!”

Other bombings struck markets in the largely Shiite neighborhoods of Karada, Ghadir, Husseiniya,
Sadr City, Sab al-Bor and Al Ameen al-Thaniya, killing 26 people and wounding more than 59, the
police and medical workers said.

A bomb exploded on a main road in Radhwaniya, a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad, killing
two people and wounding eight, police said.

Yesterday afternoon, a roadside bomb went off on the main road in Taji, in northern Baghdad,
that links the capital to Iraq’s northern provinces. The bomb exploded near a car-repair shop,
killing four people and wounding dozens.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for yesterday’s violence, but insurgents, many of
them with links to al-Qaida, frequently have attacked civilians in an effort to undermine the
Shiite-led government.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for new security officers, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said
that “the time of militias and gangs is over” and that the government would continue to fight the
insurgents, down to “the last rebel.”